DIRECTIONS:In a conservatively festive looking medium bowl, stir together the butter and sugar. Pray. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Sift together the flour and baking powder, stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the heavy cream. Pray. Cover dough, and chill for 2 to 3 hours, until firm. May place close to womb to decrease necessary chilling time.

Preheat oven to 911 degrees F (488.33333333333337 degrees C, but we do not believe in that commie stuff). Add book, preferably one written by Charles Darwin. Annoint cookie sheet with crisco like you're John Ashcroft being appointed lord high texecutioner.

Place cookies 1 inch apart on the prepared cookie sheets. Sprinkle with colored sugar reflecting the hellfire of the condemned if desired. Pray.

Bake for 5 to 8 minutes in the preheated oven, or until who the heck knows when, but at least wait until the bottoms and edges of cookies are light brown. Remove from baking sheet and cool on wire racks. Speak in Tongues. Flinglish fanem coobler a doggle rah, visule pracasset neigh! Pray.

Condemn to hell and torment all who sneak a cookie before they have adequately cooled, or the democratic secular humanist of your choice. Store in an airtight container. Pray. Decorate with festive stoning rock display, again available at www.raptureiscomingsoonyouheathenfornicators.com).

We all know that outside of blowing up some foreign swarthies the thing you loved most is money. If anything you obsess over your stock market earnings more than most. So I'd like you to pay attention to this particular statistic.

When "the Clenis" took office in January 1993, the stock market stood at about 3,500. When "the Clenis" left office in January 2001, the stock market was at 10,588.

In nearly five years, what has "Mr. Deficit" the Chimperor Disgustus accomplished for your market portfolio?

Yesterday, the market closed at 10,717.50. Five years into the Clinton presidency it stood at about 8,000 (more than double).

Friday, December 30, 2005

Tonight on NBC news (which I never watch and am reminded why) a story by Pete Williams on the investigation just announced by the justice department into the identity of the person who leaked to the NYT the warrantless wiretapping of citizens.

Williams introduces the piece, followed by a 5 second clip of Russ Feingold saying something on the floor of the senate, then followed by Richard Posner (Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th circuit) spouting his opinion that the benefit we gain for the minimal intrusion of data mining is worth the freedoms we give up.

Good lord, the opinion is idiotic for all sorts of reasons, as digby said:

I'm of the mind to adopt "give me liberty or give me death" as my personal motto. If I have to kowtow to a bunch of childish Republican panic artists who have deluded themselves into believing that fighting radical Islam requires turning America into a police state, then it's just not worth it.

...but why do they have to skip the whole debate and go right to the opinion of a curmudgeon who wants to reduce everything to balancing the economic value of the intrusion (everything boils down to conservative economics at the U of Chicago ya know).

Tell me again, if it is a minimal intrusion, why congress couldn't have authorized the program? If it seems like a good idea to you Posner, why have any standards at all. There is nothing sacred to some of these assholes. I'm with Digby. There are some things worth dying for.

Logo designer Bjorn Atldax says he's not just trying for an antiestablishment vibe.

"It is an active statement against Christianity," Atldax told The Associated Press. "I'm not a Satanist myself, but I have a great dislike for organized religion."

The label's makers say it's more of a joke, but Atldax insists his graphic designs have a purpose beyond selling denim: to make young people question Christianity, a "force of evil" that he blames for sparking wars throughout history.

Oh man, I can just hear Pat Robertson and his ilk talk about how Europe has turned away from God and embraced Satan. Can't you all hear it? I wonder how they will say it?

GIBSON: No, I think it's bullshit. If it isn't, why are they still around? How come apes aren't people yet? It's a nice theory, but I can't swallow it. There's a big credibility gap. The carbon dating thing that tells you how long something's been around, how accurate is that, really? I've got one of Darwin's books at home and some of that stuff is pretty damn funny. Some of his stuff is true, like that the giraffe has a long neck so it can reach the leaves. But I just don't think you can swallow the whole piece.

OY, the ignorance, it makes my heard hurt. Gibson is the intellectual equivalent of downing a slurpee in 15 seconds.

On the far religious right Janet Parshall show a discussion with Chris Wilcox regarding the wall that will keep out "this criminal element coming across the border." We need to recognize that the issue of immigration has been overtaken by the religious and far whack-a-doodle minutemen right-wing. But just as David Duke's attacks against affirmative action was adopted without acknowledgement by the Reagan and Bush administrations, the arguments for a "fence" on the borders with Mexico and Canada are really about white supremacy at worst and clearly racism.

There's a reason "William Safire" rhymes with "Unintentional Satire" -- hell, as Roger Aisles points out the NY Times won't even charge you for it (waiting for them to go the extra "just" mile and pay us to read David Brooks). The NY Times brings that bitter old bastard back for his annual year end crystal ball quiz (about as accurate as the National Enquirer's psychic predictions).

#1 We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek intelligence services, via the US. We should stop. It is bad information anyway. Tortured dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe, that they and we are fighting the same war against terror.

#2 I gather a recent London interdepartmental meeting considered the question and decided to continue to receive the material. This is morally, legally and practically wrong. It exposes as hypocritical our post Abu Ghraib pronouncements and fatally undermines our moral standing. It obviates my efforts to get the Uzbek government to stop torture they are fully aware our intelligence community laps up the results.

#3 We should cease all co-operation with the Uzbek Security Services they are beyond the pale. We indeed need to establish an SIS presence here, but not as in a friendly state.

You can learn more about Uzbekistan here -- from our own State Department. Apparently, this is far too taxing for quality reporters like Steno Sue, Judith Miller, Tommy Friedman, James Hoagland. It is undoubtedly woody-inducing for people like Charles Krauthammer and James Taranto.

Treatment or Punishment

The law prohibits such practices; however, police and the NSS routinely tortured, beat, and otherwise mistreated detainees to obtain confessions or incriminating information. Police, prison officials, and the NSS allegedly used suffocation, electric shock, rape, and other sexual abuse; however, beating was the most commonly reported method of torture. Torture was common in prisons, pretrial facilities, and local police and security service precincts. Defendants in trials often claimed that their confessions, on which the prosecution based its cases, were extracted by torture (see Section 1.e.). In February 2003, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture issued a report that concluded that torture or similar ill-treatment was systematic.

Authorities treated individuals suspected of extreme Islamist political sympathies, particularly alleged members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, more harshly than ordinary criminals, and there were credible reports that investigators subjected persons suspected of belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir to particularly severe interrogation in pretrial detention, in many cases resorting to torture. After trial, authorities reportedly used disciplinary and punitive measures, including torture, more often with prisoners convicted of extremism than with ordinary inmates. Local human rights workers reported that common criminals were often paid or otherwise induced by authorities to beat Hizb ut Tahrir members (see Section 1.d.).

As in previous years, there were numerous credible reports that officials in several prisons abused Hizb ut-Tahrir members to obtain letters of repentance, which are required for a prisoner to be eligible for amnesty. According to prisoners' relatives, amnestied prisoners, and human rights activists, inmates who refused to write letters disavowing their connection to Hizb ut-Tahrir were often beaten or sent into solitary confinement. Human rights activist Ahmadjon Madmarov reported that prison officers in Navoi beat his son Habibulla, who was sentenced to 9 years in prison for membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir, with rubber batons when he refused to write a letter of repentance.

And perhaps the lamest excuse for horrid torture in history...

According to officials from the MVD Prisons Directorate, authorities dismissed six guards and three prison officers following the 2002 deaths of Mirzakomil Avazov and Khusnuddin Olimov, members of Hizb ut-Tahrir who were tortured to death in Jaslyk Prison in Karakalpakstan. The Karakalpakstan Regional Prosecutor reportedly investigated the deaths, but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges. The Government maintained that extensive burns on the two men's bodies were the result of a tea fight; however, independent analysis by experts in the United Kingdom of photographs taken shortly after their deaths concluded that the men had likely been suspended in boiling water.

Oh, and the photographs of our buddy the head torturing a-hole of Uzbekistan:And you know, if there's a torturing asshole about, Rummy has GOT to meet him...

Media reports that U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay had convinced the state's highest court to hear his appeal were as widely circulated as they were, well, wrong.

Justices for the Texas Court Criminal Appeals agreed merely to consider hearing DeLay's money laundering case. They never said they would accept the case, said Edward Marty, the court's general counsel.

The erroneous media reports, which the San Antonio Express-News published in a wire story and displayed online, come from DeLay's spokesman, Kevin Madden, in an e-mail sent to reporters Tuesday evening, after courts had closed for the night.

The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them.

These files, known as "cookies," disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States.

Because we all know the very FIRST thing that most Al Qaeda operatives would do is head to the NSC website.

Alan K. Simpson (R), the former Wyoming senator who was in Washington during the last big congressional scandal -- the Abscam FBI sting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which six House members and one senator were convicted -- said the Abramoff case looks bigger. Simpson said he recently rode in a plane with one of Abramoff's attorneys, who told him: "There are going to be guys in your former line of work who are going to be taken down."

At one point, while testimonies were being read, an attendant hurried down the isle carrying a piece of paper. A minister took it to the podium. It was a letter from President Bush, an announcement that brought a gasp from the congregation.

Bush expressed his and his wife Laura’s sadness and condolences to Tony and his wife, Lauren.

“I pray for you,” the President wrote. “May God keep you. May his light shine upon you.”

There is no greater tragedy than a parent burying a child. And how many have been buried because of King George's global War on Terra? Let's not stop at Americans, how about Iraqis? I'll bet you King George hasn't hand written a letter to all the soldiers parents. As for the Iraqis, we do our best to minimize collateral damage.

Jeralyn Merritt and Reddhedd weigh in on how Chimpy's voyeurism is going to bite the Justice Department in the ass.

One of the real, unspoken scandals, in the thing christened the "War on Terror" (which is actually a "War on Somantics") is the relative inability of the Bush Administration to actually convict all that many folks of anything -- though they certainly accuse them of much.

Take the example of Brandon Mayfield, the lawyer who was falsely accused -- by the Justice Department -- of being involved in the Spanish train bombing, only to be completely absolved later. There are many others, including here in Iowa where people who have hade held political views opposed to the Bush Administration being accused of violating one federal law or another -- only to be completely absolved.

And to what level of abuse has the government gone to make their accusations -- and to what level have they gone in trying to convict them?

Which brings us back to this now known to be widespread use of the NSA to listen into conversations.

Jeralyn and Reddhedd are better at laying out the legal problems than me (I stay far away from criminal cases).

But let me speculate on one case in particular.

What did the government do with Jose Padilla?

It took them forever to charge him -- and they've completely changed, or attempted to change, the nature and venue of the case against him. What have they got and how did they obtain it?

In an attempt to get down on his knees and appear as much a supplicant as anyone, serial Bush-hugger John McCain said this about high school biology classrooms and whether students should actually be taught science or fairy tales:

LET THE STUDENT DECIDE!

Oh there's a educational plan.

Let teenagers decide, okay -- if, I, the teenage Atta J. Turk, had power over my high school curriculum it would have gone like this:

-- No Calculus-- More Blowjobs-- Free Candy-- Free Pot-- Every teenage girl is a Cheerleader (a Cheerleader that gives Blowjobs)-- Who lives, Who dies?-- Shopteachers with a full set of Fingers-- Attendance Optional-- Pants Optional

Your mileage may have varied.

The point is, of course, that teenagers are not fit to determine what gets taught. But if you told them they were, they might think you were the cool teacher.

President Bush and other top officials in his administration used the National Security Agency to secretly wiretap the home and office telephones and monitor private email accounts of members of the United Nations Security Council in early 2003 to determine how foreign delegates would vote on a U.N. resolution that paved the way for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, NSA documents show.

Two former NSA officials familiar with the agency's campaign to spy on U.N. members say then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice authorized the plan at the request of President Bush, who wanted to know how delegates were going to vote. Rice did not immediately return a call for comment.

The former officials said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also participated in discussions about the plan, which involved "stepping up" efforts to eavesdrop on diplomats.

KIRKUK, Iraq - Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.

Five days of interviews with Kurdish leaders and troops in the region suggest that U.S. plans to bring unity to Iraq before withdrawing American troops by training and equipping a national army aren't gaining traction. Instead, some troops that are formally under U.S. and Iraqi national command are preparing to protect territory and ethnic and religious interests in the event of Iraq's fragmentation, which many of them think is inevitable.

The soldiers said that while they wore Iraqi army uniforms they still considered themselves members of the Peshmerga - the Kurdish militia - and were awaiting orders from Kurdish leaders to break ranks. Many said they wouldn't hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades, especially Arabs, if a fight for an independent Kurdistan erupted.

"It doesn't matter if we have to fight the Arabs in our own battalion," said Gabriel Mohammed, a Kurdish soldier in the Iraqi army who was escorting a Knight Ridder reporter through Kirkuk. "Kirkuk will be ours."

The Kurds have readied their troops not only because they've long yearned to establish an independent state but also because their leaders expect Iraq to disintegrate, senior leaders in the Peshmerga - literally, "those who face death" - told Knight Ridder. The Kurds are mostly secular Sunni Muslims, and are ethnically distinct from Arabs.

Their strategy mirrors that of Shiite Muslim parties in southern Iraq, which have stocked Iraqi army and police units with members of their own militias and have maintained a separate militia presence throughout Iraq's central and southern provinces. The militias now are illegal under Iraqi law but operate openly in many areas. Peshmerga leaders said in interviews that they expected the Shiites to create a semi-autonomous and then independent state in the south as they would do in the north.

The Bush administration - and Iraq's neighbors - oppose the nation's fragmentation, fearing that it could lead to regional collapse. To keep Iraq together, U.S. plans to withdraw significant numbers of American troops in 2006 will depend on turning U.S.-trained Kurdish and Shiite militiamen into a national army.

The interviews with Kurdish troops, however, suggested that as the American military transfers more bases and areas of control to Iraqi units, it may be handing the nation to militias that are bent more on advancing ethnic and religious interests than on defeating the insurgency and preserving national unity.

What a disaster -- what an unconscionably fucked up lie and disaster Iraq was, is, and will become.

Henceforth the nickname for these two pathetic operatives (has anyone already used this?):

"Kill Moose & Squirrel Dahlink, protect fearless leader"

There are two reasons these two have not been hired by anyone involved in the Plame matter, or any other legal matter involving the Bush Administration:

1. They are not the legal eagles they are described as in rote fashion by the talking heads.

2. They are not paid to be lawyers, they are paid to be "lawyers on teevee" that -- no matter what -- manage to construe every legal scenario in favor of the Cheney Corporation.

And I still want to know how Toensing, who must have a clown college working that hair has Wolf "Cliff May is Well Respected" Blitzer's number? Apparently she has the CNN version of the "Bat Signal" where she gets buzzed and then calls up and spew bullshit at will. I'd tell you to refrain from carpet/curtains jokes but what kind of hypocrite would that make me? Although if we are going to mock Toensing's dye job, we cannot forget DiGenova's futile battle against pattern baldness.

Monday, December 26, 2005

VIENNA, Austria -- Officials in Arnold Schwarzenegger's hometown quietly removed his name from a soccer stadium overnight, complying with the California governor's demand in a bitter dispute over his death penalty stance.

Authorities late Sunday night or early today removed the large metal letters spelling out the action star-turned-politician's name from the 15,300-seat stadium in the southern city of Graz, taking advantage of the Christmas lull to avoid attracting attention. They timed the work to take advantage of the Christmas lull to avoid attracting attention "and keep the media from taking photos," a local city hall official who declined to be named told Austrian television.

Schwarzenegger had written to the mayor of Graz a week ago asking that his name be removed after local activists called for the stadium to be renamed because of the governor's refusal to block the Dec. 13 execution of convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams.

Capital punishment is illegal in Austria, where many people consider it barbaric. Opposition had run especially high in Graz, whose official slogan is "City of Human Rights."

I'm sure he acts like he doesn't give a shit, but he does. People like him just cannot take that without incessantly wringing their hands and worrying about image. Meaningless but fun.

When he was a Washington lawyer several years ago, says law professor Glenn Reynolds, a telecommunications carrier offered him a fat paycheck -- up to $20,000, he believes -- to write an opinion piece favorable to its position. He declined.

You think that I could at least get the backwash of some of that mythological Soros money!

So this is how Colin Powell lives out the tatters of a life after four years of sycophancy at the footstool of King George:

"I see absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing these kinds of actions," Powell told ABC television Sunday after revelations last week that Bush authorized the National Security Agency to intercept communications by Americans with no approval from a special foreign intelligence court.

"The president made a determination that he had sufficient authority from the Congress to do this in the way that he did it, without getting warrants from the courts or reporting to the courts after doing it," Powell said.

Firstly, to say the president made a determination presupposes he is capable of complex thought. See, here he would have had to remember several things at once: The Constitution prohibits warrantless intrusion into citizens homes, he was being asked to intrude into people's homes without a warrant, and he swore an oath (on a family bible!) to uphold the Constitution. Call me a pessimist, but I don't believe for a minute the man thinks like that.

Secondly, Colin: shut the fuck up. You failed in your duties. You failed in your solemn duty. You failed the American people. Here was your oath, asshole:

The Oath of Office for the Vice President, Secretary of State, and other federal employees is as follows:

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

And try the Fourth Amendment while you're at it.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What culture doesn't love a parade? Here we see a holiday pageant in Moscow.

Russia doesn't really have Santa, they have the "Supreme Father Frost" (between 1941 and 1945 replaced by less popular "Obersturmbannführer Asshole") and his assistants the Snow Maiden -- and apparently Katherine Harris.

J. Hansen poses in front of his collection of toy soldiers. Hansen, who has been an admirer of French ruler Napoleon since the age of 12, re-created the Battle of Austerlitz with some 6,100 toy soldiers, more than 1,000 horses and 34 canons, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the battle.

(AFP/Slim Allagui)

Mr. Hansen should be a progressive blogger like Attaturk, living a life of debauchery.

Scout Prime has been keeping tabs on how FEMA has been responding since the initial nightmare of Katrina. Sadly, they have not gotten any better.

WWLTV reports that 485 Children are still missing post Katrina and once again FEMA is at the center of the problem. FEMA has refused to release information to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Louisiana Clearing House for Missing Children. FEMA is running its own missing person's hotline but "Walter Fahr, manager of the Louisiana Clearing House for Missing Children, said FEMA has names, addresses, phone numbers, and social security numbers of evacuees that could help connect parents with children." He went on to to say "the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has had more expertise than FEMA in finding missing children." FEMA says this.....

the agency could only release personal information to law enforcement such as the FBI. FEMA’s Nicol Andrews said the FBI made its first request for a broad amount of data on December 5 and that information was released three days later. There was a request for more information that was given to the FBI Thursday. Andrews said there has been no delay, adding that finding children has been a key priority for FEMA.

NO DELAY! Can you imagine not knowing where your child was for 4 Months??? Or a child without their parents for 4 long months???

The incompetence is compounded by their stubborness -- a perfect microcosm of the Bush Administration.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

For those of you who haven't seen it, Lila Rajiva has done an excellent expose of David Horowitz's latest anti-progressive effort in his anti-left, anti-woman, anti-gay, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Black Bush New World Order (apologies if I left anything out from the previous list). Her essay is an informative must read and is at the Counter Punch Website.

Here is my suggestion for the radicals among us who see the need to keep tabs on the iliterati of the far right (religious or secular). Review the site to see if it has your name, your organization, or your website listed on it. This is tricky, becasue the site divides the specific cultural menaces we "radicals" represent into several different categories against the social order of the New World Order.

While many of the readers of the Hegemon could claim several categories for their activism, Horowitz's web site designers only let each individual subversive have one category... sorry for those of you who are radical in multiple ways. So you may have to search to find your name, whereupon you can click your name for a biography. Some of the biographies are riddled with errors, but read on anyway. Clearly the "researchers" for this website crib the biographies from anything unflattering they can find on the internet or elsewhere.

...and ruby Red slippers too, made by the best in Italian haberdashers. But pay no attention to the most beautiful in vestments, it's all about peace and love, right?

"But the men and women in our technical age risk becoming victims of their own intellectual and technical achievements, ending up in spiritual barrenness and emptiness of heart," he said.

To combat such a void, he urged the faithful to open their minds and hearts to the birth of Christ.

"The modern age is often seen as an awakening of reason from its slumbers, humanity's enlightenment after an age of darkness," he said. "Yet without the light of Christ, the light of reason is not sufficient to enlighten humanity and the world."

A little humanity is good except, of course, for our brothers and sisters practicing sodomy, and even those who would, if not for their vows. They just need to be fixed.

While we have all been very busy with the holiday season, it is critically important that everyone give the General -- Jesus General that is -- his due over catching the racism among Fox News affiliate, if not the larger Fox network.

Of course, one would expect better coverage from anyone who calls themselves journalists or reporters. Of course, with Fox News even the extremists at Stormfront.org is not seen as the white supremacists that they are. Run by former Klan activist (among a larger pedigree in the white supremacist movement) Don Black, Stormfront.org is an effort to legitimize white supremacy. Don't bother to go to the Fox affiliate itself, the report has suprisingly vanished. Fortunately, webizens like the General, Raw Story, and ThinkProgress have archived the important information.

For most airstrikes in Iraq, U.S. crews have been employing 500-pound, precision-guided bombs rather than the 1,000- or 2,000-pound versions used in past conflicts, Peck said. The smaller bombs are intended to reduce the potential for collateral damage.

In limited cases, the 100-pound Hellfire missile is used. "It won't knock down a house, but it can be effective in taking out a car," Peck said.

You were not honest with your mother when you told her that you loved the new sweater she got you. We all now that red & white vertical stripes on a sweater make you look like a fat barber pole, or a giant peppermint prick. Why did you not tell her? Don't you know that dishonesty is saved only for the highest levels of government?

P.S. Try to talk a little louder next time.

To Mr. Ted McCarthy, West Allis, Wisconsin:

We understand that you did not want to go to Christmas Eve services this year. Come on now, we all know that you went to the 24 hour adult bookstore and bought a four hour DVD compilation called "Giant Knockers & Bubble Butts". Is that really how you wanted to spend that Christmas bonus? You know your ex-wife has been telling you that little Ted needs braces.

To Ms. Anna-Joan Johnson-Parker, Waco, Texas:

A very special greeting from all the boys here in Department Z of the NSC. Your special description of what you were doing with that candy cane & egg nog really lifted up the spirits of those of us stuck here on the Christmas Eve shift. Sure your husband in Iraq seemed to be enjoying himself between the heavy sobbing, but we're sure that some decade or another the Iraqi's will run out of triggering devices on the IEDs.

In the meantime, our supervisor would like to know if you have any plans for New Years?

To Mr. John Peterson, Knoxville, Tennessee:

Nice save when your wife picked up the phone while you were talking to your mistress. Telling her it was your long-lost sister discussing her recent performance in the World Gymnastics Championships was quite credible (the "backdoor pommel horse"?). All of us here in Department Z were really convinced. Enjoy all that spit in your scrambled eggs over the holidays.

An Iraqi court has ruled that some of the most prominent Sunni Muslims who were elected to parliament last week won't be allowed to serve because officials suspect that they were high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

Knight Ridder has obtained a copy of the court ruling, which has yet to be circulated to the public.

Juan Cole hasn't commented on this story yet, but I'd be interested as to what he thinks.

If you haven't seen Ferguson's show by the way, he has developed into a tremendous monologist ... and we're not talking about jokes, we're talking about story telling. Do check him out after Letterman (or more likely videotape or tivo him)

His discussion of pension benefits smacks of both elitism and imbecility. Here's a message to Kevin from the middle of the country.

It costs a fuck load more to live in New York than to live in Des Moines or even suburbia. There should be somebody at the Washington Monthly that understands this, what with the wonkery you so love there and all. Those transportation workers, work a fuck load harder than you (or I) do; they usually have shorter lives, and getting half of their salary at retirement at 55 is no miracle boon. And even if it was, bully the fuck for them. But the bottom line is -- it is not.

It isn't enough that the government calls its monitoring program "Muslims of America" (and apparently its just me and two others that are outraged about that) and then goes on to datamine the rest of us.

There is simply no defense for going off and monitoring the islamic community in their homes -- without warrant -- willy nilly.

The FBI has been covertly monitoring mosques and Muslim homes and businesses in U.S. cities for abnormal radiation levels since 2002, several government officials confirmed Friday.

One government official said the authorities don't obtain warrants because the testing is conducted from outside the buildings on what they consider public property.

An official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that none of the FBI's programs target gathering places of any specific segment of the population and that non-Muslim sites were also monitored for radiation. (Watch how sources say the monitoring took place nationwide -- 1:31)

A Muslim advocacy group has said that the program is "misguided" and targets "the wrong people."

"It is a waste of time, it is a waste of resources and it is causing us to be concerned about our citizenship, our constitutional rights," Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told CNN.

Several sources said the covert program is legal because the authorities conduct the testing in areas like parking lots.

I'm sorry, that last excuse doesn't fly.

It is NOT legal for the FBI to come outside my house on a public street and monitor my house using thermal techniques because I'm a liberal, a Kerry voter, a George Bush detester, etc. In fact, it is illegal to do so without a warrant PERIOD!

We think that obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical “intrusion into a constitutionally protected area,” Silverman, 365 U.S., at 512, constitutes a search–at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use. This assures preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted. On the basis of this criterion, the information obtained by the thermal imager in this case was the product of a search.-- Kyllo v. U.S., 533 U.S. 27 (2001)

I fail to see the distinction in this case. In fact, it is even worse, in Kyollo the police suspected Kyollo was growing pot and had decent reason for suspecting. Nevertheless, they did a thermal image search before getting a warrant.

Here the government is simply willy nilly targeting homes and mosques for radiation searches throughout the country for no real reason whatsoever it appears but suspecting large groups of muslims of making dirty bombs.

There's been no evidence of any of this whatsoever, including Mr. Padilla as it turns out.

The National Security Agency has conducted much broader surveillance of e-mails and phone calls — without court orders — than the Bush administration has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on its Web site.

The NSA, with help from American telecommunications companies, obtained access to streams of domestic and international communications, said the Times in the report late Friday, citing unidentified current and former government officials...

...Since the Times disclosed the domestic spying program last week, President Bush has stressed that his executive order allowing the eavesdropping was limited to people with known links to al-Qaida.

But the Times said that NSA technicians have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might lead to terrorists.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunications data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the paper said, quoting an unnamed official.

So remember, those of you who say "Merry Christmas" are fine; those of you who say "Happy Holidays" are probably alright; "Happy Hannukkah" -- you're okay for now; "Merry Kwanzaa", you're probably being watched.

Friday, December 23, 2005

For example, the "Rule of Law" says that it is okay for the President to snoop into the communications of private American Citizens, as long as we call it a non-descriminatory name like "MUSLIMS OF AMERICA"

But the Rule of Law also prohibits a Democratic President from not admitting he got his knob slobbered.

In a recommendation to the solicitor general on filing a friend-of-court brief, Alito said that the government "should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled."

The June 3, 1985 document was one of 45 released by the National Archives on Friday. A total of 744 pages were made public...

...Charles Fried, a Reagan administration solicitor-general, two decades ago noted the implications of the memo in his introduction, "I need hardly say how sensitive this material is, and ask that it have no wider circulation."

In a special edition, we give you a traditional holiday plant that gives you an excuse to stick your tongue down the throat of your neighbor's 'hot wife' (or husband as the case may be). All in good "Christian" fun!

“No one in the Washington press corps understands George W. Bush better than Fred Barnes. He provides the best picture we have had yet of a president who is, as Barnes writes, ‘an inner-directed man in an other-directed town.’ I couldn’t put it down.” —Michael Barone, senior writer, U.S. News & World Report (Fap! Fap! Fap!)

“Crackling with fine reportage and analysis. Barnes knows this subject better than anyone.” —Rich Lowry, editor, National Review (Are we still winning Rich?)

“I know Fred Barnes and I thought I knew what he knows about President Bush. Boy, was I wrong. This book is a revelation. I couldn’t stop reading it.” —Brit Hume, host, Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Brit Hume (The unintentional humor, it burns, it burns)

And of course,

“George W. Bush is not an easy president to understand or to appreciate, even for his supporters. Now one of the nation’s great political reporters goes beneath the surface to reveal the president’s passion and vision. This is must-reading for Bush backers and Bush bashers alike.” —Robert D. Novak, nationally syndicated columnist (I loves me some Ruppert)

A few weeks ago, when the fairly weak (to say the least) government of Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin fell, the right in the United States was quick to trumpet their brilliance. It looked like the Liberal Party in Canada was on the ropes. But as usual they managed to ignore what the rest of the world (and even a majority in this country does) being anti-Bush is a boon.

As usual, the only brilliance they have is what the funhouse mirror gives them.

A month before national elections, Canada's prime minister is basking in criticism from the United States, while his main challenger struggles to fend off praise from allies of an unpopular Bush administration...

...The flap is likely to mean a boost at the polls for Martin's Liberal Party, says Darrell Bricker, president of Ipsos Reid Public Affairs, a polling firm in Toronto. After the holidays, Bricker says, look for aggressive Liberal campaign ads tying Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper to President Bush. Some voters will be drawn to Martin's Liberals "to stop what they see as a mini-George Bush," Bricker says...

...In a November poll, 73% of Canadians expressed an unfavorable view of Bush, according to results by Innovative Research. In the same poll, though, 68% said they had a favorable view of Americans.

The results show "that the rising tide of anti-Americanism in this country is driven not out of a dislike for the American people but as a visceral dislike of Mr. Bush and the war in Iraq," Rudyard Griffiths, executive director of the Dominion Institute, a group that promotes Canadian history, told the National Post newspaper.

Meanwhile, Harper has been left to stiff-arm praise from U.S. conservatives. Commentator Patrick Basham praised Harper's free market, socially conservative values recently in a Washington Times opinion piece. "If elected Mr. Harper will quickly become Mr. Bush's new best friend internationally," Basham predicted.

Harper quickly wrote to the newspaper to point out his differences with Bush on Iraq, abortion rights and the lumber fight.

Basham, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank, says he was surprised by the swift and harsh reaction to his friendly op-ed piece. "The (Canadian) left congratulated me on destroying Stephen Harper, and from conservative Canadians I got, 'How can you do this to us?' "

Excuse me while I burst out laughing for a few minutes.

...and then cry because of the fucked up nature of our politics and media that manages to play upon the ignorance of millions of Americans...

South Korean researcher Hwang Woo-suk resigned from his position as a university professor on Friday after his school said he had damaged the scientific community by fabricating the results of at least nine of 11 stem-cell lines he claimed to have created.

NBC reports that Chalabi got less than 1% of the vote in his sometimes country. And the article at the MSNBC website contains some choice schadenfreudious electoral nuggets.

Out 2.5 million votes cast in Baghdad, Chalabi clocked in at a rather anemic 8,645 votes. Anbar province, the center of the Sunni insurgency, was never going to be Chalabi's base. But you'd have thought there might be more than 113 voters who'd vote for the guy. The list on: Basra, .34 percent of the vote.

That's not much purple. Apparently, there are not even people in Iraq that care enough about Chalabi to waste a suicide bomb on him.

The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority "in the United States" in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today's Washington Post.

Daschle's disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution....

"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text," Daschle wrote. "This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused."

And hey, Bush took it so well that when this explicit language was taken out...

Since October 2001, Bush has authorized 30 times - every 45 days - warrantless NSA domestic surveillance of what I have heard estimated of approximately 1,000 US persons a year. That would be 4,000 persons over the past four years, if I understand the shifting numbers offered correctly. But whatever it is. The Administration insisted again today that the only US persons being authorized to be spied on by Bush -- that he somehow didn't think he could get FISA warrants on -- are directly linked to Al Qaeda suspects or a related terrorist group. As Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella wrote in a public letter (.pdf linked) to Senate and House Intelligence committee leaders today, "As described by the President, the NSA intercepts certain international communications into and out of the United States of people linked to al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization."

This begs the question: how many people known to be "linked" to Al Qaeda has the administration let roam the streets of America since 9/11? I would guess the answer would be approaching zero.

Gee sounds like a good question. Especially since IPOD Slut Cheney opened his lyin' piehole and claimed their snoopin' had saved countless lives.

1. Live forever.2. Light up the Sky like a flame.3. I'd like to give that masturbation thing all the kids are doing a whirl.4. Have one of those deep friend snickers bar.5. Have open-heart surgery (that way it will be like a goal I've achieved)6. Load 16 tons.7. Attend George W. Bush's "Viking Funeral"

Seven Things I Cannot Do

1. Defy the laws of physics2. Start Smoking3. Achieve the level of uber Albino Whiteness of John Gibson4. Throw the deep out.5. Wake you up before you Go, Go.6. Get ahold of my doctor and have him guess what's been around for four hours.7. Get James Wolcott to notice my existence.

Seven Things That Attract Me to...Blogging

1. The Women2. The Drugs, dear god, the drugs.3. The satisfaction of a job well done -- and hating that feeling, so let's throw up this shit.4. In cyberspace, no one can see you scratch yourself.5. Beats doin' time.6. The chance to expose my editing problems to the whole blessed world.7. Just try to enforce that restraining order on a web-cam Debbie!

Seven Things I Say Most Often

1. Darn2. Shucks 3. That's a Capital Idea4. By this time my lungs where aching for air5. Oh, Poopie6. He touched me...in my happy place7. It was that way when I got here

Seven Books That I Love

1. Will & Ariel Durants "Western Civilization" 2. Movie Megacheese by Mike Nelson3. A Man on the Moon - Andrew Chaikin4. A People's History of the United States5. Law Among Nations - Hans Morgenthau6. Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon7. Dreadnaught - Robert Massie

Seven Movies That I Watch Over and Over Again

1. Lord of the Rings Trilogy2. From the Earth to the Moon3. Any MST3K movie4. The Right Stuff5. Casablanca6. I, Claudius7. The Fall of Eagles

I do dislike religion, and I do advocate for evolution, but I'd feel the same way even if I found Jesus, probably. Although the only way I'd find Jesus is if I experienced massive brain damage, so that's not entirely certain. And I have to concede that maybe if I did have some major cranial trauma, I'd think just like David Klinghoffer.

Nedra Pickler writes for the Associated Press with more tidbits from Cheney's recent trip. I mentioned on Monday that for the flight into Baghdad, the Air Force loaded an Airstream trailer into the belly of a C-17 cargo plane for Cheney and his top aides.

Pickler has more on that and on how during the flight home last night on his traditional 757, most of the electric outlets went on the fritz.

"Working passengers began lining up their laptops to share the power from a couple of working outlets - particularly the reporters who urgently needed to prepare their articles to transmit during a quick refueling stop in England.

"But when Cheney said his iPod needed to be recharged, it took precedence above all else and dominated one precious outlet for several hours. The vice president's press staff intervened so a reporter could use the outlet for 15 minutes to charge a dead laptop, but then the digital music device was plugged back in."

First of all, I'm kind of surprised the Cheney has an IPOD.

I'm not at all surprised that Cheney would bigfoot his way into screwing the "littler people" (for example, when in New Orleans in September he ate a beignet off the back of a drowned prostitute).

What I would really like to know is what the hell he has on that IPOD? Athenae stated she could only think of the Star Wars Imperial March -- which would fit of course.

...Or the Mordor theme from Lord of the Rings.

Maybe both.

But I would bet that Cheney is listening to audio of people being waterboarded. It helps him sleep.

But what I really want to know, oh soused one, is now that your War-fightin' Boy Toy has decided to listen in to phone conversations -- especially between you and your non-expats -- how much you love the Chimperor Disgustus now?

You've been incredibly awol.

But there are a lot of open bars this time of year, so I may have been expecting too much.

Judges of the FISA court, follow your hearts and take a stand for the Constitution. Come through and follow the last sentence of this article.

The judges could, depending on their level of satisfaction with the answers, demand that the Justice Department produce proof that previous wiretaps were not tainted, according to government officials knowledgeable about the FISA court. Warrants obtained through secret surveillance could be thrown into question. One judge, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said members could suggest disbanding the court in light of the president's suggestion that he has the power to bypass the court.

As we all should know by now FISA allows you to eavedrop for three days before you get a warrant, but even that isn't enough for the Bush league dictator, check out this quote:

One government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration complained bitterly that the FISA process demanded too much: to name a target and give a reason to spy on it.

"For FISA, they had to put down a written justification for the wiretap," said the official. "They couldn't dream one up."

What better message could be sent to the public about the pervasive nature of the Chimperor Disgustus than that?

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

"This just in to the FoxNews room via the DrudgeReport via NewsMax via the Washington Times. A report from Texas, China Springs, Texas has just arrived and things are a little blurry but it appears that a major terrorist attack was thwarted overnight. We go now to our reporter on the scene Brian Kilmeade."

"Thank you Laurie, I'm here with a Mister Theodore Nugent, a resident of China Springs who just finished speaking with police and officials from the Homeland Security Department about what happened during the early hours of this morning, the most holy and perfect day ever created, Christmas. Mr. Nugent, can you describe what occurred?"

"Please call me Ted."

"I'm sorry, Ted"

"First, Brian I'd like to say that I watch FoxNews all the time and in the spirit of the season I'd like to wish Laurie happy holidays, and let her know that I'm wearing a belt made out of mistletoe. YOU ROCK MY WORLD WOMAAAAAAAAAAN!"

"Thank you so much Mr. Nugent, but my producer says that first you must tell us what happened."

"Well see it was about 2:30 in the morning here on my ranch and it was all quiet when I heard this disturbance on the roof. I got up to see what was going on, when I heard footsteps up there and then noise coming from my fireplace. So I did what I always do and I grabbed by trusty aught six.

I quietly moved down to the family room and what did I see down there but this crazy ass guy with a long beard carrying a big pack behind him. I immediately thought, suicide bomb...I mean Homicide Bomber. So I quickly aimed and screamed "take that Al Queda!!!!" and pumped five rounds into that dude before he could blow hisself up and harm my family. Lord only knows the death and destruction that crazy aaaaaaaa-rab could of caused."

Later that morning.

"The Department of Homeland Security has released the first images from what appears to be a foiled terrorist plot that occurred in China Springs, Texas today. Authorities say that the perpetrator has yet to be identified, nor has any group come forward to claim responsility, it is believed that Al Qaeda may have played a role in the attack. Here is the image the government has released to us."

No way to talk about anything but the terror bombing investigation in Texas. My faith has been renewed in Americans during Christmas. Even though they talk a good politically correct game out in public, evidently, behind the scenes they are as ruthless as I would expect from a civilized country under attack by bloodthirsty barbarians who have been brainwashed.

What is also good is the crazy-assed rock star tactics that we saw at work Christmas morning. The take down and kill tactic is incredible, if for no other reason than its bravery. Can you imagine the job of that homeowner? Shoot a guy wearing a red suit and hope your gun is loaded up to put five bullets in the noggin before he sets off the bomb in his big sack.

Turns out he didn't have a bomb, and turns out all he had was a sack full of toys and some caribou. And if it turns out ultimately that he had nothing to do with anything, no doubt there will be hell to pay. But the Bush Administration says he was linked to the terror probe, so let's wait and see.

Meantime, got to admire the cojones of that deaf long-haired freak to go after him like that. All of this trumps any of my other complaints that the rock stars are not making the right noises about fighting terror. They like to go about things with a bit less distortion than us. Not my style, but okay, fine — as long as they get the five in the noggin of the right bomber elf. They do that and I'm fine.

So for the moment, alls well. Just catch the terrorists. Five in the noggin is fine. Don't complain that sounds barbaric. We're fighting barbaric.